XP freezes at Setup

i used the recovery discs and formatted my HP pavillion. it installed everything but when i rebooted it and it ran set up, it said to click 'next'. the problem is that 'next' was not a button, it was only text. i hit enter and it brought me to the speaker setup screen. and then it just stops. i cant get any further than that. i thought that the hard drive might be the problem, but the exact same thing happened when i installed it on a brand new hard drive. thinking that it might be the discs, i got new ones. and again the exact same thing happened. the HP tech support team has had no helpful info. so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

windows XP home
intel celeron 1.8 Ghz
160 GB HD
60 GB HD
512 MB RAM

 

Maybe. However, I would say this early in the game, you are jumping to conclusions far too soon.

Its been a while since I've had to troubleshoot OOBE issues, but:

Can you get into Safe Mode, and dioes it work there?

If you disable the video card in Device Manager (in Safe Mode, if it works), does that work to get you into normal mode?

During the OOBE wizard ( thats the intial welcome/setups creen after the restore), can you hit ctrl-alt-del to get to task manager, or does Shift-F10 work for you?

 

Along the lines of what Adrynalyne said, your problem sounds like a bad startup entry or a device driver.

Also make sure you don't have some unnecessary peripherals connectes to the system, especially the USB type devices. Unplug/disconnect whatever is not needed.

 

F10 brings me to a command window and ctrl-alt-del doesnt work. also i only have my monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers plugged in. it also doesnt boot in safe mode

 

I don't know if Adryn have other ideas but mean while let me ask you, what happens when you try to boot in 'Safe Mode'?
"it doesn't work" won't do, please elaborate on it, give details as to what you see on the scree, any error messages, etc.

 

sorry about that. it says 'The System is not fully installed. please run setup again.'

*something i forgot to mention that i already tried*
i also tried to install of XP using an XP disc, not the recovery CDs, and it worked fine. i would have left it like that except that i didnt have all of the drivers that i needed.

 

Man, it sounds like your HardDisk mbr must be a mess.
Why not do a fresh install and then using a diagnosis utility like Everest Home Edition and easily find out your mobo, video card, etc. so you could download their drivers from a PC that has net connection (assuming you were able to post this thread that you do have access to a PC with Internet connection .

 

Whenever I reformat a pc I install XP fresh (no recovery disk nonsense), regardless of the make/model. You can find drivers on the net on the manufacturer's (of the device) site or on HP's site. If you don't have internet access, you can make a list and put the drivers to disk on another computer that does have internet access (very tedious but worth it). Once your computer is up and running with all devices functional, there are programs that can be used to make your own recovery cds that don't have all the extra crap often contained on manufacturer recovery disks.

I know this is going around the problem but it's what I would do and will certainly pay off in the end, especially if you ever have to reformat again. Good luck.

 

Sorry for a repeat post... Turcoloco got to it first .

 

YES!!! Where is my price? What did I win?
Nah, kidding, doesn't matter, mine was an opinion too. When that many things been done and it is almost impossible to make sure what the status of the OS/ installation is like, I wouldn't want to comment any further that is why a fresh install definitely did sound like a good choice unless Adryn had something else to add?

 

When the command prompt comes up after hitting Shift-f10, type taskmgr, and hit enter, see if you can stop the oobe process from the applications section of task manager.

If you can't do that, click on the processes tab and list what is in there.

We will await your response.

 

when i try to end the oobe, the standard 'not responding' window pops up and i click 'end now' and the screen goes black and has a window that says 'The system is not full installed. Please run setup again.'


Under Processes i have:
taskmgr.exe
cmd.exe
agentsvr.exe
svchost.exe
svchost.exe
msoobe.exe
lsass.exe
services.exe
winlogon.exe
csrss.exe
smss.exe
System
System Idle Process SYSTEM

under CPU it says the System Idle is 97. is it suppose to be like that???

 

Yes, System Idle can fluctuate, but normally it is in the 90s. I am not sure what Adryn had in mind but I am kinda suspecting the agentsvr.exe. Although this is a normal Windows multimedia process, I am not sure if it could be causing a problem here or not. It shouldn't hurt if you highlite that process and 'End Process' it to see if it makes a difference.
If it didn't help, I'd let Adryn take it from there.

 

heck, I'm not sure where to go from here.

You could try Turc's soltuion, but if it doesn't work, we will have to look to other avenues.

Are you doing a full recovery, or a nondestructive recovery?

If you have the disks, to remove any chance of there being a software problem, debug the drive.

Instructions are as follows:

You need a 98 bootdisk.

Boot to it and then:

Type debug to start it.

It will go to a "-", then type the next lines, pressing ENTER after each line:

F 200 L1000 0
A CS:100
xxxx:0100 MOV AX,301
xxxx:0103 MOV BX,200
xxxx:0106 MOV CX,1
xxxx:0109 MOV DX,80

xxx:010C INT 13
xxxx:010E INT 20
xxxx:0110
g
q

Then reboot and run the CDs again.

This is at your own risk.

 

i ended agentsvr.exe and nothing happened. i am doing a full recovery. what would happen if i did what Adrynalyne suggested??? also could the problem be with the BIOS???

 

but also what would happen if it went wrong

 

My instructions zero out the MBR, completely erasing all data and partitions.

 

well i did all that and it froze at the setup again

 

My last suggestion at this point would be (again) a fresh, clean install.

Here is my logic on operating system repairs:
If you can backup your valueable data, then calculate the time it would take you to install XP + critical updates + Whatever other updates you think you need + the 3rd party programs you want to install = X amount of time
The total amount of time you will waste trying to fix a severe OS damage = Y
Y = X > Fresh install is a better choice
X < Y > Fresh install is a better choice
X > Y > Do what you can to fix it

I will hand the microphone to Adryn and let him take over from here on out.
Either way, good luck to you.

 

i installed windows 2000 professional on my computer so that i could bring it back to school. and it doesnt work right. it doesnt allow me to change the screen area from 640 by 480 to anything else. it also takes like 3 minutes to shut down, eventhough there is nothing running. i also cant change it from 16 colors. what im wondering is could be part of the problem that i was having with XP freezing.

 

Sounds like a problem with the video card. Possibly a driver/resource conflict.
If problem persists after installing the proper drivers then it is a resource conflict or another software is causing it. I have seen this problem on the NT servers running PCAnywhere, once the video card drivers were lost or corrupted, re-installing the video card drivers would not remedy since by design PCAnywhere would assume the place of the video device drivers so the installation would never be successful.

One other cause is the RAM, bad RAM is known to cause device driver errors among other things, but mainly Video Drivers since video card and system RAM and CPU is the bermuda triangle in a PC.

What do to:
Try booting in Safe Mode if you can uninstall all installed video drivers/software you can find, then boot in the normal mode and install the proper/current drivers...hope this helps.